An OpenRouter alternative for Russia: the same API, prices below official

OpenRouter's API hasn't gone anywhere; the trouble is paying for it. It does not accept Russian cards or SBP, and according to user reports, since May 2026 it has been declining payments from accounts with a Russian location. Over the summer users also started reporting 403 errors on requests from Russia. There has been no official announcement, so these are user reports, not a confirmed fact.

In practice your integration keeps working while there is money on the balance. Once it runs out, the API will answer 402, most likely under load. From there you have two options: top up through a reseller, or take the cross-border payment out of the chain. We worked out the cost of the first option separately: what it costs to top up OpenRouter from Russia. The second one is described below.

Prices in USD per 1M tokens: input / output.

Images and video

37 image models and 35 video models work with the same key and the same balance; no second integration needed.

Images are priced per image, video per second or per clip.

The full catalog: 122 models with prices. No subscription and no monthly fee: you pay for each request, and its cost shows up in the log.

Pick a model and enter your token volume. The OpenRouter row is the same vendor price plus 5.5% on credit purchases.

We compare what you can verify. The rows where we lose are left in.

OpenRouter: openrouter.ai/pricing and openrouter.ai/docs/faq, checked on October 27, 2026. The comparison is for self-serve sign-up; enterprise terms may differ.

The protocol is the same, so request structure, response parsing, streaming and tool calling stay as they were. The same request in Python, JavaScript and cURL:

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://api.altrouter.ai/v1",
    api_key="ar-...",
)

resp = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="claude-sonnet-5.5",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Hello!"}],
)
print(resp.choices[0].message.content)

Model IDs. OpenRouter's carry a vendor prefix, ours don't: anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5 is claude-sonnet-4-5 here. You don't have to rewrite them: we strip the prefix ourselves, and the request finds the same model. If a model isn't in the catalog, the 404 response suggests the three cheapest replacements. GET /v1/models returns the full list with prices.

Claude Code and the Anthropic SDK

Besides the OpenAI format we have an Anthropic-compatible /v1/messages: Claude Code and the Anthropic SDK connect to the same catalog and balance. For Claude Code three variables are enough:

export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://api.altrouter.ai
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=ar-...
export ANTHROPIC_MODEL=claude-sonnet-5.5
claude

What to check before switching production

1. Streaming on a real prompt, not on "Hello": this is where OpenAI compatibility breaks most often.
2. Tool calling, if you use it.
3. The model field in the response: it should match the one you requested. A swap to a cheaper model shows up in a single request.
4. The log: find your request and check the model, the tokens and the amount charged.
5. Latency at your context size.

This check takes about fifteen minutes and less than a dollar of the $1 welcome credit.

• Russian bank card or SBP - in one payment form, up to 20,000 ₽ per payment.
• Crypto - for larger amounts, or if you simply prefer it.
• Exchange rate - the market USDT/RUB rate; you see the ruble amount before you pay. Packages from $15.
• $1 for testing for a confirmed Telegram account, once per person. No card needs to be linked.

Keeping the money on the balance under control:

• a spending cap on each key - per day, per month or for all time;
• a requests-per-minute limit per key;
• a separate key for each service or teammate, with spend visible for each one;
• a log of every call with the model, tokens and amount charged, kept for a year;
• if a provider fails, the request goes to a backup where one exists.

• Hundreds of models. We have 122 models, and almost no open-weight ones.
• Embeddings, reranking, TTS/STT and batch. Only text, images and video.
• Free models. Instead, $1 for a confirmed Telegram account.

If any of this applies to you, stay on OpenRouter: it's cheaper than migrating.